WEST HOLLYWOOD, California — She can score whatever interview she wants. She can send a book to the top of the best-seller list. She can even inspire the Backstreet Boys to reunite.

Thanks to Oprah Winfrey, the Backstreet Boys have decided the timing is right to finally hit the recording studio for the follow-up to 2000's Black & Blue.

"We're all excited," Kevin Richardson said soon after the group taped an upcoming episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" last month. "All of us hadn't been together in the same room in like six months, so it was wild. It was good to be back together again."

"We've got some stuff written, but we're gonna go in with an open mind and just explore and experiment and see what happens," Richardson said. "We've been talking about going with live horn sections and stuff like that, just funkin' it up, but not really in a hip-hop sort of way. More of using horns and live strings and a little bit of a '70s edge or something."

The guys have some ideas for producers, but Richardson wants to keep them under wraps for now. "We just wanna make music that we're proud of and have fun," he added. "It's simple."